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Olympic soccer stars Tobin Heath and Christen Press reveal 8-year-long romance & we're SCREAMING
Women's soccer has a new It Couple and they are crazy about each other!
When soccer stars Ashlyn Harris and Ali Krieger split up last year, our collective hearts were broken, but it turns out we didn’t need to mourn the loss for long because there was already another lesbian soccer relationship for us to obsess over!
It turns out Olympic soccer champs Tobin Heath and Christen Press have been dating for eight years, and we were none the wiser until now.
The two athletes managed to keep their relationship out of the public eye for years, but Heath and Press finally made things official during an interview at the 2024 Paris Olympics, E! News reports.
“Tobin and I were not really friends. We weren’t really running in the same circles. And then as soon as I actually got to know her, there was just, like, a magnetism,” Press said on Sunday’s episode of the Watch with Alex Cooper as part of Peacock’s Olympics coverage. “And I was like, that’s what I want. And I never looked back. I still feel the exact same way.”
Despite going strong for nearly a decade, many fans are just learning about the pair’s relationship status now, despite both women posting photos together on social media for years.
“The other day, someone said to us, ‘Oh, you guys just met, you look like you’re in love,’” Press, 35, recalled. “And I’m like, ‘No, it’s been eight years.’”
Heath, 36, also expressed feeling “lucky” that the two fell in love. “Sometimes we look at each other, we’re just like, ‘Is this actually like real?’” she said. “Are we that lucky?”
Press said that while the public may have been unaware that the two hosts of the Re-cap Show podcast were dating, their teammates and people close to them were kept in the loop.
“We were never in the closet, like, hiding it,” Heath explained. “Our people always knew what was going on with us. It was the public, the fans that we got our little privacy.”
It was also tricky while the soccer power couple was playing on the same team. Heath and Press both earned bronze for Team USA at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and were part of the 2015 and 2019 World Cup-winning teams. Heath also took home two additional gold medals while representing Team USA.
“I think there was something a little bit forbidden when it comes to navigating that situation,” Press revealed. “We’re both forwards so competing for a spot, competing for time. And then off the field, locking it down, being in a relationship and navigating that through the early, early stages of our relationship.”
Still, Press and Heath kept things under wraps because they wanted to create a “protective bubble” around their relationship. But once the pair moved onto separate teams, things got easier.
“It wasn’t until we both weren’t playing on the same team that it was a little bit easier for us to come forward and share our relationship a little bit more,” Press added. “Tobin always played ahead of me, it was set.”
We wish the lovebirds all the best at the Paris Olympics!
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Ariel Messman-Rucker is an Oakland-born journalist who now calls the Pacific Northwest her home. When she’s not writing about politics and queer pop culture, she can be found reading, hiking, or talking about horror movies with the Zombie Grrlz Horror Podcast Network.
Ariel Messman-Rucker is an Oakland-born journalist who now calls the Pacific Northwest her home. When she’s not writing about politics and queer pop culture, she can be found reading, hiking, or talking about horror movies with the Zombie Grrlz Horror Podcast Network.
